by Mike Staton
More noises of positive affirmation echoed through the group. A set of small hands, Susanne’s, gave her a gentle shove out toward Percival’s side. Kat took a couple steps forward and turned to face the semi-circle of people clustered around.
“I, uhm… You know…” Kat stumbled through her words.
Percival came to her rescue. “Sorry to put you on the spot. I know it’s been a long day. Long few days and some of us haven’t slept much during them. It’s late, let’s get some rest and we’ll work something out tomorrow.”
There was a murmur of agreement that swept through the adults.
“Good. I can’t express how good it is to see all of you. Truly. I’ll see you tomorrow in the morning.” Percival dispersed the crowd with a sweep of his hand.
Chapter 5
Percival didn’t sleep so much as pass out into an exhaustion driven recharge state. He didn’t dream, thankfully, and woke feeling feverish and slightly chilled. His body ached from the virus ravaging his body and the strain he’d put it through the prior day.
The ache in his shoulder had faded to a dull reminder he’d been bitten there while the bullet wound still burned hotly. In the early morning hours, and at Kat’s insistence, he’d allowed her to check both wounds. The teeth holes in his shoulder looked days old, slightly puffy with infection, rather than less than a full day and ripe with decay. The hole in his side had gotten slightly worse and turned an angry pink.
But that color had faded by the time a few of the survivors of the massacre had woken. He remained on his cot in the corner near Dan, the other infected man. When Lillard and Hope, who’d opted to be defunct leaders for the 27 people in the Community Center, had woken, Percival rose from his cot, walked the short distance to Kat and crouched down in front of her.
“Hate to break your meditation into your best friend there, but we need to talk about getting out of here and back to the rest of the Watchmen.”
Kat looked up at him from her .22, which she’d disassembled and was in the process of cleaning. “I’m not a leader. You realize that, right? I mean, I can take point on a mission, but I’m not…”
“I’m picking up what you’re putting down.” He dropped onto his butt and coiled his legs into a cross legged sitting position. This wasn’t the first time he’d wished he had Sarah here with him. He’d been chosen to lead on his own merit, but she’d always been there to bounce ideas off.
Hell, some of ‘his’ best ideas had originated with her. His gaze snapped down to the ground as he fought not to cry in front of Kat. The soft sounds of her resuming the reconstruction of her rifle drifted through the air.
“We’ve all lost people, Percival,” she pitched her voice quiet so it didn’t drift past them. “I’m not Sarah. Never even wanted to be, sorry to pop that bubble. I’m not a leader by nature. Getting up in front of crowds isn’t my thing. That’s Ian’s shtick. Stick me in a window with a rifle and as long as I’ve ammunition, ain’t no soul, living or undead, that’ll pass me. But that’s me.”
Percival lifted his gaze from the knot in the wood he’d been studying and looked at her. Kat’s gaze remained on her rifle as she put it back together, worked its various pieces and reloaded the magazine.
“But you… you’re a natural people magnet. People’re drawn to you and listen to what you’ve got to say.” Kat tapped the magazine once on her thigh before she slipped it into her rifle and chambered the first round and flicked on the safety. “It’s somethin’ you’re good at. I have this tendency to piss people off. It’s better to keep them at a distance. Hence…”
She gestured to the rifle she’d just finished maintaining.
Percival nodded once. While he didn’t expect her to agree, he thought she’d done just fine with guiding another human being toward what he needed to do.
He glanced over his shoulder as Lillard and Hope walked over.
Hope was a tall woman, nearly equaling Lillard’s height, but where he was all limbs, she was better proportioned. Long legs met a slender, supple, torso bound in a well-fitted hoodie that brought out all of her feminine qualities. Her arms were folded beneath her breasts as shook her head to some comment from Lillard. She wore her blonde hair back in a high ponytail, giving everyone an ample view of her full and beautiful face.
“Well, you’re the only one here who knows the safest way from town to Glover’s farmstead, so… I’ve got your back on anything you say.”
Kat shrugged.
It wasn’t the response he’d hoped for and gritted his teeth in a moment of frustration. He took a deep breath, smoothed his features, and turned around as Lillard and Hope neared.
“We’re staying here,” Lillard growled.
Hope glanced his way. Her features spoke to annoyance with the man at her side, but they smoothed almost instantly as they returned to Percival. “Lillard is convinced we’re better off fortifying the Community Center against further incursions. That it’d be best to stick our heads in the sand and pretend we’re perfectly—“
“I said no such thing.” Lillard rounded on her, his hand flew from the pocket of his jeans and hovered threateningly beneath Hope’s nose. “I just see no reason to follow… that—“ he gestured toward Kat, “—out into the wilderness in a trek to a place that isn’t even half as secure.”
“Because your little setup here is super without even a way to properly lock the doors.” Kat didn’t even look up from her pistol as she disassembled it.
“Not listening to you, Holter.”
“The criticism isn’t welcomed right now, Miss Holter,” Hope started.
“Kat.”
“Kat. Our stronghold here is temporary,” Hope said. She seemed about to launch into something else, but Percival cut in.
“Temporary. The Glover Farmstead has been an outpost for the Watchmen since the early days of the fall of society. Shortly after we retook most of the town, in fact. It’s been secure the whole time and has people there who are actively searching for you. She’s evidence of that.” Percival gestured to Kat with his final few words, then stepped in front of her to break Lillard’s stare. “Look, Lillard… I get it, you’re scared and angry. You lost people when the town was hit and hit hard. I understand. It’s not easy.”
“You…” Lillard rounded on him. “You’ve no place to talk. Where’s everyone else you left us with? Hmm? Out to scout for our wintry survival and… Only you come back. Days after a massive horde smashes us to bits. An—“
The slap resounded and echoed throughout the gymnasium. Hope’s hand cocked back to deliver a second blow. Percival reached up to take her wrist and gently guide it back to her side.
Lillard’s mouth hung open in stunned, silent shock.
Silently Percival was glad that Hope’d delivered the slap that shut the man up as he could feel the embers of rage boiling in his stomach. It was the coursing, infection driven, type of anger that would result in a punch instead of a slap. And likely wouldn’t have stopped there. He let out a slow, even breath. “Thank you, Hope.”
“He was out of line.” She sounded disconnected for a moment. Her features contorted into a mask of pain as she squeezed her eyes closed. A second later and she’d adopted a serene visage once more. “He was out of line and you didn’t deserve it.”
“I’m still here.” The air’d been taken out of Lillard’s sails. There was still an undercurrent of lilting anger in his voice, but the pressure cooker that it was feeding had been bled.
“And your opinion is valuable and respected.” Percival surprised himself with how even his voice came out. “How many people want to stay here with you versus leaving with us?”
“Seven.”
“How many of them are parents who will keep their children with them? Have you told them this is a temporary departure?” Percival pressed.
“One pair are parents with a little girl,” Hope answered for Lillard. “I’ve tried to express that we’re not running away.”
Percival nodded once. “C
an you gather everyone for me?”
“Sure. Give me a few minutes.” Hope turned away.
“Going to string me up as an example?” Lillard snapped as Hope walked away.
“No. I don’t need to do the same thing as the people who attacked us did.”
“It was nothin’ more than a really, really big horde. I saw it on the horizon from the south,” Lillard tried to interrupt.
“I think that if you want to further secure this Community Center, that would be a great thing. It gives us a foothold for when we come back. I also think it’ll be incredibly dangerous.” Percival looked past Lillard. Hope’d gathered everyone into a cluster of people quite similar to last night. “But, and you may want to get out of this center to see for yourself, zombies aren’t the only thing that hit Prosperity Wells and Brown College. I have seen the evidence contrary to your beliefs. But I can’t force you to do anything.”
Lillard opened his mouth to say something, but the heavy, metallic clank of the slide on Kat’s pistol reengaging cut him off.
“Bitch about it later.” Kat flicked the safety on her pistol and pushed past the tall lanky man. Despite his couple feet on her, he seemed to be half her height as she walked past him.
Lillard looked at Percival with an expression of ‘what the…’ plastered stupidly across his features.
Percival merely shrugged.
* * *
Kat sat on the bleachers. She didn’t want the attention she knew was about to come her way. Small groups. Close friends.
That’s where she was most comfortable. That, or, when she was completely alone. She didn’t exactly regret the decision to volunteer to scout the town as opposed to searching some of the outlying farms and tiny communities near the growing town of Prosperity Wells. And she certainly didn’t regret finding virtually 30 people clustered in a building. She wasn’t so disgusted with humanity to wish people who didn’t deserve it dead.
The people who’d strung up the leadership of Brown College and their community? She’d happily put a bullet between their eyes. Lillard? She’d happily kick him square in the scrotum.
He was angry and afraid and lashing out at someone he thought had thoroughly failed him. She tried not to take it personally.
She brushed bangs off her forehead. It’d gotten to the annoying length she hated it at. She didn’t mind it being longer, capable of being yanked back into a ponytail, but where it was now… it just went everywhere she didn’t want it to.
She let out a sigh. If only hair were her sole problem. It was such a pre-apocalypse issue. She rolled her eyes at herself. There were flesh eating zombies roving outside, some defunct military coursing through the countryside shooting up civilians, and here she was mentally grumbling about her hair.
She wiped a hand across her face and looked down at Percival. She’d tuned out most of his speech. She didn’t think it was important to hear precisely what he was telling the other survivors. Her mind was already made up.
Return to the Glover Farmstead and let Ian cut her hair back down.
There were days she missed having her long, flowing locks.
“…And Kat knows the way out there. Kat, could you come down here please?”
A few of the people also gathered on the bleachers turned toward her. She let out a soft sigh. Why hadn’t she paid closer attention to what he’d been saying?
“Sure.” She got up and came down the bleachers, using the seats for stairs until she dropped off the end and jogged the handful of steps to Percival’s side. Even infected he pulled everyone together. “What’s up?”
A smile of infinite patience grew on Percival’s face. The look told her he was annoyed that she’d not paid attention to what he’d been saying, but wasn’t going to call her out on it. She smiled sweetly back at him. “I was telling everyone that you knew the lay of the land between here and Glover Farmstead. That you know the best way to get out there safely. Could you tell the rest of us what you know?”
Kat cleared her throat and turned away from Percival and faced the rest of the survivors gathered there in the Community Center. “Uh. Sure.”
She licked her lips and adjusted her stance to parade rest and picked an empty spot on the bleachers to talk to. “Uh. Not everyone will know this, but Glover Farmstead’s a Watchmen outpost. Has been for a while now, and been cleared for jus’ that long. Old man Glover was a prepper, you know… bunker and about a billion little bricks of calories, purified water, the works. But he was among those unfortunate enough to turn without any real clear reason. No bite wound or scratches or nothin’ when we cleared the place and put him in the ground. So…”
Someone coughed, producing a cavernous echo in the empty space of the gymnasium. Kat felt a hot flash in her stomach and a cold trickle of sweat bloom at the base of her skull and shoot down her back. She licked her lips and tried, in vain, to work moisture back into her mouth. She cleared her throat, seconds dragging by as she floundered for words.
Percival came to her rescue. “What she’s saying is that it’s a good spot to hole up until we’re ready to come back here. After we’re certain it’s safe to do so. What’d you see on your way down from the farm?”
By the time his question came out, Kat’d managed to get her mouth working once more. “The woods was mostly clear. ‘Least I didn’t see much on my way in. Y’know, one zed here, one there. But a couple miles between. Easy enough to pop with my .22 and keep on moving. Here in town, though…”
She shook her head. “The remnants of the horde that came through and devastated us before the pricks with guns came in and picked off remainders are still out there. Getting out of the town, if we head up north, maybe followin’ Gillsepie Street, and hook around to the north we’ll be good for hitting the farm by evening if’n we’re steady. Shouldn’t have any trouble really. The zombies are mostly in the middle of Campus that I’ve seen.”
“What guys’re you talking about?” a man in a dark shirt with some sort of white anarchy symbol on the front asked.
“Speculation really. I… I wasn’t here when the attack hit us, but, unless, you know, the zombies’ve learned a new trick, they don’t use guns. Percival, you’ve been further out there into the unknown, seen anything strange?” Kat looked away from the empty spot on the bleachers and to Percival.
His face paled in the dim light of the downward flashlight. “Plenty of strange things. Mutations and weird zombies, assholes with guns too, but not asshole zombies with guns. I’ll give a full report once we’re somewhere a little more permanent.”
“Can I make a suggestion?” Kat kept her gaze on Percival.
He nodded, almost imperceptibly.
“If you still have the keys to your Humvee, we should go get that. It’s quite the hike out to the farm and we’ve got someone who can’t walk and quite a—“
“I’m not sticking my kids into a vehicle with Dan. He could turn at any moment,” Richard shouted.
“I… Okay, I was about to suggest we let the kids ride in the Humvee. It’s quite the trek out there and, Richard, can your kids walk upwards of 15 miles through rough terrain?” Kat turned her focus onto the man who’d spoke up. It helped her to address the group without faltering. “I ain’t saying they can’t… but hell, it’s a long walk. It ain’t an easy walk either.”
“Why not make runs with the Humvee?” Another woman from the back of the crowd shouted.
“Outside of ‘it’s incredibly noisy?’” Percival stepped forward. “I’m sure part of the reason that the isolated farmstead’s remained as secure as it has is because of its low profile. Driving the Humvee back and forth is sure to draw attention. Attention from both zombies and potential survivors we don’t want attention from.”
Another man started to say something, but Hope cut him off. “The use of the Humvee for transporting anyone who can walk on their own isn’t up for discussion.”
There was a soft murmur of discontent at that statement, but no outright and audible complaints
.
“What we want to do right now is have y’all make an informed decision. There’s a couple o’ people who are going to stick around and further secure the Community Center.” Percival glanced at Lillard. “They’ll be integral to when we retake our town. Take back our home.”
A murmur of excitement coursed through the survivors gathered on the bleachers.
“But, for now, this area is dangerous. Especially for a group this big and for the amount of ghouls wandering around.”
Kat noticed he didn’t bring up the bad guys again. That was probably for the best.
“In a couple of hours, likely less, I’ll be leaving for Glover Farmstead. I’ll take with me anyone who wants to go with me. I’d encourage those of you with young ones to come with us.” Percival stepped back out of the metaphorical spotlight. “See me later as we plan our caravan.”
There was a small round of applause that would have embarrassed a golf player. Kat moved after Percival as he faded into the darkness. He raised a hand to his forehead.
“Headache?”
He nodded, eyes closed.
Kat dug into her drop pouch and sifted around for a moment before she plucked a bottle of ibuprofen out. She took his hand and pressed the bottle into it. “Should help with the fever as well. You should be the one driving the Humvee. I’ll go get it, but from here to the farm? You. It’ll help people to have you in such a visible position.”
“Thanks.” He opened the bottle, shook out several pills, and popped them into his mouth. He pulled a canteen out and swallowed them with a swish of water. She accepted the bottle back.
She didn’t bother adding that he still needed to tell everyone what he’d learned. Of course, her definition of ‘everyone’ was Ian and the other Watchmen back at the farmstead. She scrubbed a hand through her hair. “Can I make another suggestion?”
“Depends on what it is.” He stopped by his hammer and helmet.
“I want to take a couple survivors when I go for the Humvee. Going to cut through campus and cut down Donald, Emera, Rai, and Alem. Give them a quick and shallow burial. They don’t deserve to be left for the crows.” Kat folded her arms across her chest and squared her stance against Percival, preparing to argue her point. Yes it’d mean that they’d be stuck in the Community Center for longer than expected but…
